Every move you make

Some said it shouldn’t be done: the amount of surveillance in the universe is already monotonically increasing. Others said there are a thousand apps that do it already, and they probably use prettier colors too.

Nevertheless, we persisted. The bottom line is that a travel companion app is probably incomplete unless it can tell you where you’ve been. So starting with version 1.0.12, Backroads now allows you to record GPX tracks of your hikes, bikes and drives, as well as any other form of motion you might prefer. When there’s an active trip ongoing, your tracks will be saved to the current day as an attachment, just like existing attachments on activities.

If you turn tracking off for a couple of hours, or wander a half mile or more while it’s off, then the previous track will be saved and a fresh track will start up.

As with most every feature inside the app, there are circumstances in which tracking might literally save your life. Or maybe, like us, it’ll even help you elicit eye rolls from your wife as you show her how that awesome loop hike somehow rendered a wild boar on your screen.

One thing to keep in mind: once you turn on tracking inside a map view in the app, it’s on. It will never stop tracking you, every breath you take, until the entire known universe is filled with your latitude and your longitude. So please, practice safe tracking and for all of our sakes, turn it off when you’re done moving.